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When the party encounters a solitary and strong monster, should the GM state the monster's HP and armor? Or are all the calculations made by the GM secretly and represented only in the fiction ("He starts to tumble, maybe due to blood loss?" etc.).
In other words: Do the player know how many HP a monster has left or are they guessing until the monster drops dead?
This is for typical monsters found anywhere, not named monsters with an outstanding story.
The characters don't know, so there's no need to tell their players.
Your GM principles should give you your answer here:
Remember, your principles and agendas are rules just like HP and armor.
If you're telling the players the HP and armor of their enemies then you're breaking all three of these principles. The characters don't and shouldn't know that the Goblin over there has 3HP and 1-armor, because those aren't a part of the fiction, they're just numbers to help us interact with it. Likewise to give your monster life you need to describe it. What's more interesting?
You see a dragon on a pile of gold in the cave ahead, it has 16hp and 5-armor and it's coming towards you. What do you do?
Or
Entering the cave the stink of smoke and roasted flesh greets you and laying comfortably atop a pile of gold is a huge red-scaled dragon, currently devouring a helpless goblin. Finishing his meal casually the dragon gets to his feet before you, that fang-laced grin that only a dragon could achieve wide across his wedge-shaped head. "Foolish Adventurers" he says in a voice that rumbles like thunder "Do you really think you are the first to try and claim my hoard? My hide has turned aside all blades brought forth against it and yours will fare no better." As he speaks you can't help but notice the myriad of shallow, harmless scrapes that mark his inch-thick scales. Smoke curls from his nostrils and his eyes gleam with menace as he takes a step towards you, leaving you feeling like a mouse staring down a cat... A huge, flying, armored, fire breathing cat that enjoys playing with his food. What do you do?
I know which one would have me reconsidering how much I wanted that treasure.
It's important to note here that the 16HP and 5-armor aren't what make a dragon a terrifying opponent, with a bit of luck a pair of level 1 characters could bring him down quite quickly if they just kept making Hack&Slash rolls until he dropped. No, the dragon is powerful because it's a goddamn dragon. A typical sword would need to find a weak spot (perhaps the belly) to even have a chance of piercing its hide at all and to make that attack the character would have to get close enough: avoiding the fiery breath, slashing claws and biting maw on the way.
Interesting Reading:
First of all, the PCs never know any of these. HP and stats are an abstract meta concept and can ever only be known to the players.
Personally, I do not tell my players the stats of a monster.
However, monster stats are easily figured out by the players anyway. Monster stats are defined by the fiction. When you build a monster according to the rules, you describe what it looks like and what it acts like. Then you assign it the appropriate stats as written in the rules. As a result, if your players read the rules, they will know the approximate stats of a monster as soon as you describe it in the fiction. Some stats are easily figured out from play, even if you don't know the rules, like the damage and piercing.
In DungeonWorld, however, the difficulty of a fight is not primarily established by the stats of a monster, but rather by the description of the monster in the fiction. For example, a skilled and devious Goblin with 6HP and d6 damage can prove a much harder enemy than a dumb and clumsy Orc with 20HP and d10+5 damage.
